Northland

Lester, an 84-year-old white man, was charged with two felonies for shooting Ralph Yarl, a Black teen, April 13. His trial is set for October 2024.

The KCATA says Kansas City, Missouri, residents will no longer subsidize the costs to run buses through the surrounding suburbs. That's meant a dramatic increase in costs to individual cities — pushing many municipalities like Gladstone and Liberty to cancel their bus service entirely.

Lester, an 84-year-old white man who lives in Kansas City’s Northland, was charged with two felonies for shooting Ralph Yarl on the night of April 13, after the Black teen mistakenly arrived at the wrong address.

Andrew “Dan” Lester, 84, has a preliminary hearing in Clay County Court on Thursday and Friday, where the high-profile case will be held with limited media coverage and a gag on what attorneys can say outside of court.

The Parvin Estates tenant union is the first of its kind in Kansas City's Northland. Residents say that rents are being raised by 35% after years of neglect, including broken air conditioning and infestations of rodents and insects.

The city’s new on-demand transit service, IRIS, will now serve riders across the entire metro — with the intention of filling in the gaps of existing bus routes. The expansion is happening at the same time that KCATA hikes the cost of providing bus service to surrounding municipalities, causing concerns about accessibility.

Jenay Manley, a single mom and organizer with KC Tenants, is running for Kansas City Council’s 2nd District At-Large seat against Lindsay French, a lead designer at TJP Strategies. If elected on June 20, Manley would be the first Black person to represent the Northland on City Council.

It's been almost two months since teenager Ralph Yarl was shot in Kansas City's Northland when he accidentally arrived at the wrong house. The case sparked nationwide outrage and attention. But Yarl's family is frustrated with how a Clay County judge is handling the criminal case against accused shooter Andrew Lester.

Starting today, residents across Kansas City can begin early voting for the June 20 election for mayor and City Council. The new council is confronting an urgent need for more affordable housing, recent spikes in violent crime, economic development and neighborhood livability issues.

The Kansas City Council on Thursday voted to change its contract with the developer to enforce city rules requiring them to contract with minority- and woman-owned businesses as it builds its massive Northland data campus.

Kansas City officials hired a private investigator to surveil the city's then-Civil Rights director — something she said was retaliation for raising alarms about a massive development project in the Northland. A report from the Civil Rights office says Kansas City officials let Meta, the parent company for Facebook, ignore the city's diversity hiring rules when constructing a Northland data center.

The sprawling data center campus was hailed as a project that would bring jobs and investment to Kansas City's Northland. But a new report alleges Turner Construction, the general contractor behind the Meta campus, skirted city rules on hiring minority businesses — and that city officials tried to silence the Civil Rights office director when she sounded the alarm.